


So that you remember (so that it doesn’t fade)

by tukimecca



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Ten Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25179280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tukimecca/pseuds/tukimecca
Summary: 10 years later, Yosuke thinks about how he used to be so in love with his partner
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	So that you remember (so that it doesn’t fade)

**Author's Note:**

> been wanting to write about these two since I started my “Persona 4 revival” or whatever it is called. I’ll probably have dozens of variations of how this particular moment unfold. This one just stumbled out of my brain when I listened to this song.
> 
> WARNING: not beta-ed, sorry for grammatical error, English isn't my 1st language.

_I wonder if you have forgotten, back then when we were sitting under the summer shade,  
Back then when we were eating ice cream, waiting for the wind to blow _

Ghost in The Flower – Yorushika

:::

Yosuke wakes up every day thinking about how foolishly he used to be in love with Yuu compared to now.

Not that he doesn’t love his partner anymore, no, don’t take him wrong, but there is a clear, startling difference in the way he loved him back then, when he was so much younger and so much more foolish than he is 9 years later. Nowadays, waking up to remember how much he loves Yuu feels pretty much like a routine that has settled, as normal as waking up on his side even if he remembered falling asleep on his back. It no longer feels like the dawning realization of, “ _God, I love him_ ,” instead, it’s a, “ _ah, yes, right, I love him, I love this person_.”

It used to be so important back then, to give that suffocating heat inside of him a name, a shape; to outline and fill it with something that he can identify. To put it into words so it can eventually gain a sound to vibrate and glide on the air to reach someone’s ears. To make it clear and crystal that he no longer has to agonize himself with questioning. Nowadays, nowadays those don’t seem to matter anymore.

Maybe because Yosuke’s older now, more mature. He knows that some things are meant to be left in the hazy darkness of swirling mist - and they’re not always gonna be dangerous. He just accepts that the floating warmth that drifted gently like fluttering snow whenever he thinks of, and whenever he sees Yuu, as _love_. Everything comes easily after that. He has come to realize now when it’s easier to sleep thinking about how right it is to love his partner, that not everything has to gain shape.

Which could just be a roundabout way to justify his cowardice, could just be his excuse to give up. It’s just, he is growing up, coming to terms with his feelings while at the same time making peace with his decision not to do anything about the heat inside of him because his bond with Yuu is something too precious to be risked. Whatever shape it holds doesn’t matter, as long as Yosuke remembers, as long as it never loses its vibrant, bursting color. As long as Yosuke can stay by Yuu’s side, watching, seeing, knowing what Yuu has gone through and is going through. Everything that Yuu feels, listens, everything that passes by his sight, grazes his skin.

They’re so much more important, they hold so much more meaning, value, than finding “an answer” for himself. An answer that would only serve to satisfy his own ego, quell his own fear. They suddenly feel so much more, even if it’s against everything they used to stand and fight for, when they were running around through the mist in the tv world; to find, learn and see the truth clearly with no pretense,no falsehood. Now, appreciating every time he spends with Yuu by his side, treasuring every bit of Yuu’s life that his partner shared with him, cherishing how Yuu makes him feel, they’re all something he cannot lose compared to a label stamped to identify their relationship.

Yosuke thinks it’s okay, like this, even if it means he has to see Yuu with someone else one day. Even if he can never be what he once foolishly, anxiously, dreamt himself to be once back in the day when he spent half of the day looking at the world through Yuu’s shoulders. Now, he thinks it’s okay. It totally is. Because he’s older, and he realizes that giving shape to something, to put a name on something is not everything.

With such mindset, he lets it slip one day, “you know, I was once in love with you,” with such nonchalance that he could not feign when he was young. With such casualness of talking about something that is not related to him at all. With words flowing easily out of his lips like well-rehearsed speech, like prayers cast every night. No single pause nor stutter to further emphasize his acceptance and resolution about this issue.

Yosuke’s so sure nothing could ruffle him, but then, Yuu, as always, as he spares Yosuke nothing but side-along glance he always gave Yosuke when they’re sharing their daily occurrences with each other, has to say, “I know.” With that calm and composed voice of his, with that bedrock-steady poise of his, “I have always known, Yosuke.”

And Yosuke can’t help it, despite everything that he has grown himself out to be, but to return into that awkward, dorky 17 years old with poorly-dyed brown hair and limbs that felt too long, with a body felt too small to contain the snowballing feelings inside of him. Returned back to when he was so young, and was so desperate to deny something that he was equally determined to have. He returned to that fragile, brittle younger version of himself, dragged back, arrested, by Yuu’s lulling admission to Yosuke’s placidly thrown confession.

Yosuke stares. At his partner, his best friend. At the small distance between them, breached just by one wooden chair. Yuu’s still wearing his working clothes, light blue shirt with collar slightly popped up. The sleeves are neatly rolled to his elbow, revealing his toned arms, one that leads to black watch-clasped wrist, and another holding a half-empty jug of draft beer. It’s nearly 11 pm yet his slacks are still immaculately neat as always, like they’re recently pressed. The only sign of long day aftermath is his tie; red and hanging loosely around his neck. He shows no sign of alcohol-induced flush, skin as alabaster-pale as always. There is no faint red blossoming on his cheeks, mirroring Yosuke’s current state in the shock of what practically was a love confession.

Yuu doesn’t say anything for a while, calmly sipping on his beer like his best friend did not just drop a bomb of decade years old love on his lap. Yosuke is left then, to stare, to drink in this Yuu after his confession compared to the one he had always imagined years ago when telling his partner about his feelings was a much bigger deal that could take away his ability to sleep. 

They’re so hilariously different, like how his reply had been a calm, unperturbed, “ _I know_ ,” instead of startled, astonished, “ _What?”_ that Yosuke imagined his clumsy, heartfelt confession would stun out of the silverlett. Yuu isn’t even looking at him, for starters, just a fleeting glimpse in place of paralyzed gawk. They’re so different, as if to catch up with how physically different Yuu is now and back then, chasing criminals with his words instead of his sword. As if to mirror the change inside Yosuke, who no longer flirted with the idea of having his best friend's commitment.

Yosuke’s in the middle of noting how shortly Yuu has cropped his hair when his partner glances sideways, at him, again. Silver eyes seem to dazzle under the dim yellow light of Izakaya, sneaking one wrist-clasped hand to hold his nape, as Yuu tilts his head slightly aside, the corner of his lips curling upward.

“I have always known,” he repeats his earlier revelation. A tide that doesn’t rise, doesn’t crest. A gentle susurration of affection lining up his reiterated assertion. As if so they’re not forgotten, as if so they’re not losing their arresting, striking color. 

And once again, when Yosuke just stare, stare and take the entirety of his friend’s in with eyes that wished they could see right from Yuu’s perspective so he can know, so he can live what his partner’s going through, Yuu reaches out, opening up his palm and lay it on the empty bench between them.

“And I have always been in love with you.”

Yosuke woke up this morning thinking about how foolishly he used to be in love with Yuu compared to now. Now, as he reaches out to lay his hand on top of Yuu’s upturned palm, feeling more than seeing the glimmering emotion in Yuu’s liquid-silver eyes, he thinks that from tomorrow morning on, he’d start thinking about how foolish he had been for holding out on it for so long.


End file.
